2186: Encirclement

Encirclement

The atmosphere of the Morales family was odd.  0

The death of Velasco wasn't lost on them. It was only after he was gone that they seemed to understand just how much of a looming presence he was. Long before Leonel, there was Velasco, and it could be said that the amount of pride and joy he had brought the Morales family despite his personal attitude issues was impossible to measure. 

How long had he been the symbol of the Morales? The untouchable expert who stood above them all? Even though he didn't hold any power in the family, he was subconsciously understood to be their most powerful expert, and as a result, he was likewise a badge of projection. The Morales family was owerful enough in their own right, but anyone who wanted to do something to them needed to think twice, and then thrice, not just because of them, but because of what that one man might do. 

The day of Velasco's rampage was something that had left a scar on the whole of the Human Domain. It was something they all remembered profoundly, and it was something that the Morales had hung their hat upon for the longest time. And now… That man was gone. 

Subconsciously, they all felt a little less safe, a little less confident, a little less prideful… That sort of emptiness wasn't something that even the Ancestors could immediately contest against. Despite their best efforts, the somber atmosphere was heavy, mixing into the once happy and jovial atmosphere and creating an odd mixture. 

It was impossible for there to be 100% acceptance of a matter in a family that was so large, and there were of course some who simply didn't care and even some who felt that a scourge was finally gone, many of those being members of the older generation. 

… 

Leonel didn't feel anything different when he entered the Morale family. He wasn't very familiar with it, nor did he have any close feelings of familiarity with it. It was already much different from the first time he had been here, but once again he didn't seem to care much. 

Rather than reporting to the central region of the Morales family territory, Leonel had other plans, and that was of course to finally allow Little Tolly to evolve. In order to pick the perfect evolution path for the little one, he needed a Force Eruption. 

Force Eruptions were the method by which worlds evolved. They pumped a world with a large amount of higher quality Force than it was used to, but as a result they were also quite dangerous. 

The last time Leonel had been caught up in the Force Eruption, he had to fight tidal waves of beasts, and because he had been on an island at the time, oceanic beasts got involved and caused a great deal of damage to the land. 

He didn't think about those memories much, though, mostly because the friends that he had made on that island had all died due to the Terrain invasion. War was a cruel thing, and people died. It was a blunt and all too obvious truth. But Leonel had always been good at ignoring it… 

At least when it didn't involve the people who had large pieces of his heart. 

Clearly, there was no avoiding it now. 

These matters, though, weren't on Leonel's mind at all. He didn't care about the danger, nor did he care about those that had died all that time ago. Instead, he was more interested in finding the location of such a Force Eruption. Luckily, they weren't hard to find at all. 

The Morales World had been a Seventh Dimensional World previously for many generations. It had long since reached the end of its potential and if not for Leonel, it would have never crossed over to reach an Eighth Dimensional world. It had to be remembered that Earth was supposed to be the only world in the Human Domain with Eighth Dimensional potential. 

This aside, as a result of this, the Morales World was impossibly vast, covering several Sectors. In order for such a large region to enter the Eighth Dimension, the number of Force Eruptions necessarily was uncountable. 

It wasn't long before Leonel was able to find one. He just needed to map out the regions of Force from lowest concentration to highest and move toward the flow of the latter. Once the Force Eruptions ended, the Force would equalize. But for now, things were still very much imbalanced. 

Controlling the Segmented Cube shuttle, Leonel whizzed toward the Force Eruption. 

The Segmented Cube's shuttle mode was sleek and powerful, formed of jigsaw pieces of black and radiant blue, it looked like an enigma racing across the skies. 

The moment Leonel got into range of the Force Eruption, though, he sensed that his shuttle was locked down upon by several auras. 

Leonel didn't need to think very hard to understand what was happening. 

In such a situation, especially one so unexpected, there would of course be many bad actors. Evolving into an Eighth Dimensional world involved much more than just Force, but resources as well, and many of these resources were concentrated in regions of Force Eruptions as well. 

If they Morales were smart, they would of course leave guards in these regions, stopping both fellow Morales and bad actors from other families from taking advantage. 

However, Leonel simply didn't care. He was the Patriarch of this family supposedly. He didn't feel any sort of guilt. Though, even if he wasn't the Patriarch, it would be hard to say if he had the capacity to feel such a thing at the moment at all. 

The Segmented Cube was much too fast after entering the Ninth Dimension. Leonel knew without a doubt that there was no one in this world that could catch him in this shuttle, so how could he not get by a mere encirclement of a few? 

He zipped by, leaving them in his dust. 

However, it was clear that this matter wouldn't end so simply. And maybe Leonel didn't want it to either. 

[More Coming]

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